If you’re a glass-half-full kind of person, you may see Richard Greenberg’s “The Assembled Parties” as warmly catering to the Manhattan Theatre Club’s audience.
If your glass is half-empty, you may think it’s pandering.
The gifted author of such well-crafted hits as “Take Me Out” and “The Violet Hour” — and the adapter of recent flop “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” — Greenberg has set his new piece in a sprawling Upper West Side apartment. There an extended Jewish family gathers for two Christmas dinners, the first in 1980, the second in 2000.
The benevolent queen of this 14-room kingdom is Julie, a former teen-movie star played by Jessica Hecht (“A View From the Bridge”) like the second coming of Dianne Wiest. A welcoming host to Jeff (Jeremy Shamos), a college pal of her son Scotty (Jake Silbermann), she graciously entertains him in the kitchen. Her tone languid and affected, she’s the picture of oblivious entitlement.
Julie’s sister-in-law Faye (a tartly funny Judith Light), visiting from Long Island for the holiday, is more old school — a pistol, in fact, ladling out babka, Yiddishisms and political opinions.
“Republican Jews, what is that?” Faye wonders aloud. “It’s like ‘skinny fat people.’ ”
The rest of the relatives don’t make much of an impression, even though they’re played by the excellent Mark Blum, Jonathan Walker and, in a hilarious Broadway debut, Lauren Blumenfeld as Faye’s dimwitted, nebbishy daughter, who works at Roosevelt Field. They’re introduced in shorthand, and disappear much the same way.
When Act 2 begins, 20 years later, Julie’s world has shrunk dramatically. Earlier, Lynne Meadow’s elegant staging lets us see the family holding simultaneous conversations in several rooms of Santo Loquasto’s revolving set. Now we’re stalled in the living room.
Key family members are gone, and Julie’s finances are shaky. Her younger son, Tim (Silbermann again), 24, rarely visits. At least Jeff, who’s made a mint as a lawyer, provides doting support and Faye’s sharp as ever.
Despite this tighter focus, “The Assembled Parties” bogs down in far-fetched tangents and revelations, as well as an unlikely story about a ruby necklace. It’s not even clear why Christmas means so much to this Jewish family.
Meanwhile, Greenberg neglects dramatic potential: Jeff’s romantic devotion to Julie, or the way her kindness can be manipulative. No wonder the show feels a little wobbly — it spends too much time resting on the family tree’s flimsiest limbs.